Structure of the Dengue virus helicase/nucleoside triphosphatase catalytic domain at a resolution of 2.4 Å

Dengue fever is an important emerging public health concern, with several million viral infections occurring annually, for which no effective therapy currently exists. The NS3 protein from Dengue virus is a multifunctional protein of 69 kDa, endowed with protease, helicase, and nucleoside 5'-triphosphatase (NTPase) activities. Thus, NS3 plays an important role in viral replication and represents a very interesting target for the development of specific antiviral inhibitors. We present the structure of an enzymatically active fragment of the Dengue virus NTPase/helicase catalytic domain to 2.4 angstrom resolution. The structure is composed of three domains, displays an asymmetric distribution of charges on its surface, and contains a tunnel large enough to accommodate single-stranded RNA. Its C-terminal domain adopts a new fold compared to the NS3 helicase of hepatitis C virus, which has interesting implications for the evolution of the Flaviviridae replication complex. A bound sulfate ion reveals residues involved in the metal-dependent NTPase catalytic mechanism. Comparison with the NS3 hepatitis C virus hellicase complexed to single-stranded DNA would place the 3' single-stranded tail of a nucleic acid duplex in the tunnel that runs across the basic face of the protein. A possible model for the unwinding mechanism is proposed.